This thesis explores the research questions: How did African Americans cope with the
oppressive system of legal segregation? How did they survive and raise their families?
What were African Americansâ everyday interactions with whites like during legal
segregation? What coping and resistance strategies did they utilize to survive? Using
case studies from nearly 100 in-depth interviews with elderly African Americans between
the ages of 50-90 in the Southeast and Southwest, I use qualitative methods to detail and
analyze the experiences of elderly African Americans.
This thesis explores how the exploitation and oppression of African Americans
during legal segregation were enshrined by means of racial violence and discrimination in
every aspect of American society. Much of the racial violence was legitimized and
essential to the routine operation of legal segregation in the United States. Building on
the work of Jackman(2002), Blee(2005), and Feagin (2006) for this thesis, I
conceptualize racial violence as physical violence, written violence, and/or spoken
violence, including being called âÂÂnigger,â âÂÂboy,â and âÂÂuncle.â The racial violence can be
individual or collective which, intentionally or unintentionally, inflicts or threatens to
inflict physical, psychological, social, or material injury on African Americans who often
resist. In addition, the racial violence can occur in any public or private geographical location including, the street, workplace, and home. Lastly, an individual does not have to
witness or personally experience the racial violence to be psychologically injured or
affected by it.
During legal segregation the respondents faced actual everyday racial violence or
the threat of racial violence in the form of lynchings, sexual abuse, house burnings,
imprisonment, rape, and being incessantly called âÂÂnigger.â I argue that the psychological
traumatic experiences of fear, anxiety, stress, anguish, humiliation, stigmatization and
shame can affect a personâÂÂs life for a very long time. Every one of these injuries is
apparent in the interviews with elderly African Americans who survived legal
segregation. Thus, I suggest the important idea of a âÂÂsegregation stress syndrome,â for
the chronic, enduring, extremely painful responses to official segregation that are
indicated by the respondents.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/5955 |
| Date | 17 September 2007 |
| Creators | Thompson-Miller, Ruth K. |
| Contributors | Feagin, Joe R. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 389120 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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